Yahoo News: White House treated Benghazi as a terrorist attack on “Day One”

posted at 1:21 pm on September 28, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Eli Lake has owned the reporting on what the White House knew and when it knew it on the Benghazi attack, but he’s not the only reporter on the story. Olivier Knox at Yahoo News confirms Lake’s reporting with his own story from last night showing that the Obama administration believed it to be a terrorist attack on “Day One.” Furthermore, it wasn’t just American intelligence that reached that conclusion:

When gunmen struck the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 of this year, the response from American officials was almost simultaneous: They immediately set about collecting information about the attackers, some of whom were quickly identified as foreigners, and tracing links from them to known extremist groups, a knowledgeable source has told Yahoo News.

“Friendly Libyans were saying almost immediately that the organized attackers (not the protesters) seemed to be mostly foreigners. By the 13th, people were beginning to be identified and rolled up,” the source, who has been critical of the administration in the past, told Yahoo News. One early asset: Social media, where videos and photos of the attack gave intelligence officials early clues to what really happened.

“In this case, the intel has been spot-on from the beginning,” the source said. American intelligence reached the conclusion that the assault on the consulate was terrorism “on Day One” and “the Brits, the French, Italians all said the same thing … within 48 hours.” The source agreed to detail the American response to the tragedy on condition of anonymity.

The White House has now decided to push back against critics, accusing them of playing politics:

Administration officials have underlined that there is an FBI investigation into the attack, and said they will not offer definitive conclusions into what happened in Benghazi until that probe wraps up. They have also accused Republicans, led by Mitt Romney, of trying to score political points with the death of Chris Stevens, the American ambassador to Libya, who died as a result of the attack.

However, that ignores the fact that the White House pushed its own version of events far ahead of the FBI investigation, insisting that the attack came from a “spontaneous” demonstration that “spun out of control.” They blamed it on a months-old YouTube video, which had the effect of distracting attention from the connection to the anniversary of 9/11 and the al-Qaeda networks operating in eastern Libya, including in Benghazi itself. The White House sent Susan Rice out five days afterward to make that case, apparently four days after they themselves had already concluded that it was a terrorist attack.

That’s a key point, Knox’s source says:

But the anonymous source pointed to the relative silence from Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

“They knew the real story from the beginning and were not paraded around to make statements,” the source told Yahoo News. “Understand that the first bits of information from something like this are usually not reliable, but at the end of 24 hours, folks should have a pretty good idea of what happened … or they are not doing their job.”

At the time, I wondered why they chose Rice to make that case. The UN Ambassador has nothing to do with consulates or embassies elsewhere, nor with security decisions made by the State Department except at Turtle Bay and Geneva. That should have been the first clue that the White House was fabricating a story. And as I wrote earlier, the collapse of that story should be creating a demand for accountability from Ambassador Rice to resign, and to explain why she went on TV to tell what turned out to be a false story.

Of course, a case could be made for operational ambiguity to help lull the terrorists into a false sense of security. Don’t expect that to fly, either. Knox’s source calls the White House public response “clumsy … very sophomoric,” and for good reason. If that was the strategy, then Rice should have avoided pushing any conclusions, and perhaps not appeared on the Sunday talk shows at all. Instead, the Obama administration sent her out to tell the one fairy tale that let them off the hook for the lack of security at a facility known to be at risk by radical Islamist terror networks — including al-Qaeda — on the anniversary of 9/11. They were more concerned with electoral security than operational security, and everyone knows it.

Administration officials have underlined that there is an FBI investigation into the attack, and said they will not offer definitive conclusions into what happened in Benghazi until that probe wraps up. They have also accused Republicans, led by Mitt Romney, of trying to score political points with the death of Chris Stevens, the American ambassador to Libya, who died as a result of the attack.

But trying to cover your incompetent inaction by claiming it was spontaneous and triggered by YouTube is what?

The White House has now decided to push back against critics, accusing them of playing politics:

That’s fine. What is wrong with playing politics? Politicians play politics all the time, that is the point of them: to make policies. Here, we had a bad policy of deliberate undersecurity in a dangerous place. That’s bad policy from Dear Liar, and he has to be held accountable for the assassination of our ambassador.

As well, pushing a story that has so many big holes Ray Charles could drive a Death Star through it.

Amb. Rice could claim she was duped into telling a lie, but if that’s the case she should resign immediately on principle. If she had any principles.

Administration officials have underlined that there is an FBI investigation into the attack, and said they will not offer definitive conclusions into what happened in Benghazi until that probe wraps up.

As Limbaugh was saying a few minutes back, the O’bamna Regime is Lying about this too.

Because they know the FBI won’t try to cover for their own incompetence, they can’t let them go in to “investigate”.

Administration officials have underlined that there is an FBI investigation into the attack, and said they will not offer definitive conclusions into what happened in Benghazi until that probe wraps up.

What kind of “investigation” can the FBI be doing if they haven’t even been to the “crime scene” yet?

Administration officials have underlined that there is an FBI investigation into the attack, and said they will not offer definitive conclusions into what happened in Benghazi until that probe wraps up

Eli Lake has owned the reporting on what the White House knew and when it knew it on the Benghazi attack, but he’s not the only reporter on the story. Olivier Knox at Yahoo News confirms Lake’s reporting with his own story from last night showing that the Obama administration believed it to be a terrorist attack on “Day One.”

………and if 9/11 happens again, YAHOO / REUTERS/AP/NYT/LAT/WAPO/HUFFPO/ABC/CBS/NBC/etc. will proclaim that Obama was in the Air Traffic control tower trying to help the passengers break into the cockpits.

Still waiting for anyone in the Obama administration to show emotional outrage over the killing of our ambassador and three of his bodyguards.

Just more proof, as if we needed any, that our president hates America and has no problem watching the terrorist world go on a rampage. The Kenyan communist is smirking and enjoying America getting taken down a peg or two on the world stage.

If the terrorists took down the Sears Tower in Chicago would he take a break from campaigning?

Asked about the evolving administration line, the anonymous source said that “confusion and misinformation always helps an operational response. How much is subjective, but it is always good not to let your opponent have insight into what you know and don’t know,”

um…right. It’s the Pee Wee Herman defense about blaming the video for a known terrorist attack: ‘I meant to do that!’
I presume that was a trial balloon for that meme.

Going to be a long, ongoing investigation, isn’t it? Should last at least past the first week in November.

a capella on September 28, 2012 at 1:37 PM

I don’t understand why the FBI is even investigating a war crime. Someone needs to explain this to this dumb azz’d immigrant.

JPeterman on September 28, 2012 at 1:40 PM

Because of the automatic gag order placed on ongoing investigations. If it’s under investigation by the FBI/DOJ, then no Obamanation Administration official can be questioned about it by law. It really is that simple.

Megen Kelley talking about October Surprise….Obama doing something like striking back for political gain. Romney should get in front of this and make sure he holds Obama accountable for any half-baked operations done in the interest of boosting his re-election chances.

Nothing like this idiot doing something with wide support and paving his way to a second term from this disaster. What a nightmare scenario.

Until Americans have the gumption to surround the TV studios and demand truth from the scum broadcasters, nothing changes.
They will continue to promote the Cloward-Piven-Alinsky strategy to destroy the Republic.

Megen Kelley talking about October Surprise….Obama doing something like striking back for political gain. Romney should get in front of this and make sure he holds Obama accountable for any half-baked operations done in the interest of boosting his re-election chances.

Nothing like this idiot doing something with wide support and paving his way to a second term from this disaster. What a nightmare scenario.

freedomfirst on September 28, 2012 at 1:45 PM

Romney ought to go one better and steal a page from the Obamanation play book, and demand that Obama order a strike against Libya in retaliation, such a move would checkmate any attempt by the Obamanation Administration to strike Libya for political advantage.

Lol! The ridiculous contradictions from paragraph to paragraph & the childish “Anonymous Reliable Source”, shows this clown to have the intellect of a coconut & writing the story for the “Obama Phone Moron Crowd”. This Moron couldn’t believe that anyone who can put together a sentence would buy any of this BS, does he? He really should just walk around with the Big Red Nose & Floppy Shoes!

Well regarding an “October” surprise, I think this is why the administration was running with the ‘Film” story. Now they have been exposed as having lied about the whole thing. It’s gonna be a little harder to run an attack now..

The FBI is not even at the “crime scene”, they cannot get there,,what a farce. Two weeks worth of human vultures tearing up the scene,,,lots of evidence going to be left and of course all witnesses will give honest answers to questions,,give me a break. This is the biggest nest of lieing snakes in the history of the country. Also probably have caused more deaths than most admins as a result of those lies as well as bringing willfull incompetence to a high level of excellence.

What Law? I saw an article, by a lawyer, last week when this meme first was aired stating that the only laws restricting comment involve Grand Jury investigations but that on going DOJ/FBI investigations don’t have that restriction. If the lawyer was correct then this is a cover up.

Obama used the three people in his admin that have the least credibility to push what almost everyone knew to be BS. They were Jay Carney, Susan Rice and the Cutler bitch. If you notice no one else with any athourity or credibility with the press would go before the cameras and utter this crap because they knew they would be made to look like fools. Oh, wait a minute! I forgot the most credible person on the planet as well as the smartest……..Hillary!!! I’ll bet she has always wondered what crow tasted like!

“They knew the real story from the beginning and were not paraded around to make statements,” the source told Yahoo News. “Understand that the first bits of information from something like this are usually not reliable, but at the end of 24 hours, folks should have a pretty good idea of what happened … or they are not doing their job.”

Yeah but what do we know 16 days after the attack?

We don’t know if the ambassador was killed by asphyxiation or a mortar attack (both were reported). Nor do we know anything about the circumstances of those deaths.

We don’t know if the attack was led by a guy released from Gitmo in 2008 or not.

We barely have got the administration to use the words Al Qaeda and terrorism to sum up this attack.

We don’t know who those Navy SEALs were working for (my guess is one of the alphabet agencies and I don’t mean the EPA).

We know that the FBI has pretty much decided to phone in its investigation.

We know that the ambassador knew he was being targeted and had little security but we don’t know why he was in such an unprotected location on the 9/11/01 anniversary.

We don’t know if this was just gross incompetence in terms of security and intelligence or if the administration sought to downplay the consequences of its actions.

In short, the more the administration lies, the deeper the hole they are digging with fewer and fewer answers.

At the time, I wondered why they chose Rice to make that case. The UN Ambassador has nothing to do with consulates or embassies elsewhere, nor with security decisions made by the State Department except at Turtle Bay and Geneva. That should have been the first clue that the White House was fabricating a story. And as I wrote earlier, the collapse of that story should be creating a demand for accountability from Ambassador Rice to resign, and to explain why she went on TV to tell what turned out to be a false story.

The reason for all of this obfuscation and the reason for Rice being chosen is because she is running point on the administration’s efforts at building domestic support for the anti-blasphemy bull**** being pushed at the U.N.

This is more of the same from the Constition-evading oath-breaker-in-chief.

The Administration ALREADY offered definitive conclusions. This is about the video.

Washington Nearsider on September 28, 2012 at 2:23 PM

Yeah but even here they are lying. It is about the September 10th Al Qaeda video not that one from California. Granted much of the rioting in other places was on the pretense of offense over the California video but that was not the case in Benghazi. It is truly mind-boggling that Obama was still blaming the attack and deaths on the California video at the UN this week.

Why isn’t the news media asking any questions about the events leading up to Stevens death? We still don’t know what happened 2 weeks later. The silence from MSM is deafening. The general public doesn’t even seem to care about this story. I give up

another case of liberal, marxist, blatant, liars in this administration. Who knew? And yet this absolutely disgraceful liar and incompetent clown has people supporting him…. oh right, he gave them a phone.